Smoking freedom in 20 days: Day 20
Monkeys are sometimes trapped. The trapper makes a specially cut wooden trap that allows their narrow hands to go into the trap but once they grap the prize in the trap they cant pull their hand back out. Even when they know they are about to lose their freedom they still will not let go of the prize inside the trap. They can just let go and run away but they don’t. They want what is inside the trap so badly that they give up their freedom to get it.
With smoking freedom is given up but we still don’t get what we are trying to get.
When we live for Jesus Christ we start to have freedom and we start down a road to purpose and joy.
But many people have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. Then they go their own way and become confused about everything. When we accept Jesus as Lord we receive goodness into our lives. Jesus went about doing good. If you are a Christian one of your goals is to live like Christ as much as is possible.
There was a little old lady who was struggling to mow her lawn every week. One day a young man came over and mowed her lawn for her. She began to cry. She had had such trouble trying to cut it. He was showing the fruit of goodness.
We were created to be good people. Adam and Eve were created to fellowship with God and live in paradise. How can you bring back a little of this paradise? Live right and do something good for someone. No matter how much you have messed up your life, God wants you to have a little bit of paradise. Even if you are broke and have nothing just turn your life over to God. I felt the presence of God in my life in the most wonderful way on one of my hardest days of my life. I had just left a stock brokerage firm that I was one of three partners of. I knew I had just left behind a million dollars. I had messed up everything.
I told God that I didn’t know what I would do but that I would try to do what He wanted me to do. At that moment I felt like Almighty God was in the car with me and I felt an incredible love. At my lowest moment I felt joy and I lived for a little while the way God intended for us to live.
Say 5 times a day :Addiction is a trap and it will take my freedom away.
Try doing some good in the world and see what happens
Emotions often lead back to smoking. Anger often leads straight back into addiction for many people. One reason for this is because anger is often followed by depression. Depression for some people leads straight to smoking. So it is important to develop a better understanding of anger. www.angermentor.com says “When angry consider yourself drunk. Make no decisions and take no action while angry. No exceptions! You will either regret it or it will have negative consequence for your life – 100% of the time. It never fails. Your mind is really that clouded. Your judgement is that impaired”.
Have a list of alternate activities and refer to that list when emotions upset you.
Face the Truth… And Choose Your Pain If you want the great and mighty things God has for you, you must get to the root of anger and deal with it. Get rid of the masks and face the things that happened in your life that made you the way you are today. Admit that you can’t change by yourself. Until the root is removed, it’ll continue to produce one bad fruit after another. Too often we spend our lives dealing with the bad fruit of our behavior, but we never dig deep enough to get to the root of the problem. Actually, when we’re faced with anger, we must choose our pain.
Digging deep to take care of the bad root is painful, but it’s the only lasting way to take care of the problem. We can either suffer positively, doing what’s right or we can go with the devil’s
plan. You must decide if you want the pain that will take you into a new realm of glory or to keep your same old pain and try to hide it while it’s rotting inside you.
Peter tells us to be well-balanced and temperate, withstanding the devil at his onset (see 1 Peter 5:8-9). When you begin to feel anger, it’s the perfect time to exercise the fruit of self-control. You may have a good reason to be angry, but don’t use it as an excuse to stay that way. Instead of denying or justifying it, ask God to help you deal with it in a positive way.
Is all anger sin? No, but some of it is. Even God Himself has righteous anger against sin, injustice, rebellion and pettiness. Anger sometimes serves a useful purpose, so it isn’t necessarily always a sin. Ephesians 4:26-27 tells us, When angry, do not sin; do not ever let your wrath (your exasperation, your fury or indignation) last until the sun goes down. Leave no [such] room or foothold for the devil [give no opportunity to him]. Refuse to give the devil any opportunity to get a foothold in your life through anger.
All anger, regardless of its cause, has the same effect on our lives. It upsets us, causing us to feel pressure. Keeping anger locked inside and pretending it doesn’t exist can even be dangerous to our health. Most of the time we’re only hurting ourselves, and the person who angered us isn’t even aware of it. So we must take responsibility for our anger and learn to deal with it. Process it and bring closure to it, and that will relieve the pressure. I have been through some rough times in my life, and for many years those experiences caused me to feel miserable. I was so mad about the abuse in my childhood that it was making me bitter and hateful. I was angry with everybody, but one day God confronted me and said, “Joyce, are you going to let that make you bitter or better?” That got my attention, and I eventually had to find a positive way to process my anger. That was a place of new beginnings for me. When you face your anger and decide to deal with it God’s way, you can overcome it. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to be stable and walk in the fruit of the Spirit. We have the power to forgive those who do injustices in our lives and to love the unlovely.
When Satan makes you angry, remember that he’s trying to keep you from accomplishing the will of God in your life.
Overcome evil and anger by praying for those who hurt and abuse you. Forgive them and be a blessing to them. It may not be easy at first, but when you make the decision and stick with it, God will take care of the rest”.
Will Rogers said, “Whenever you fly into a rage, you seldom make a safe landing.” And he is right.
Proverbs 19:19 says, “A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty.” We’re being told that almost every day. Doctors tell us that losing our temper consistently brings about high blood pressure, dryness of mouth, & a fast-beating heart. It could even bring pre-mature death.
A hot temper could also mean loss of family & friends. The penalties of anger are many.
So we need to recognize that we have a problem with anger. As long as we deny it, as long as we blame it on heritage or short-fuse or whatever we choose to blame it on, we’ll never improve.
Then we must confess our problem to God & ask for His help. “Lord, I’m beginning to lose my temper, & I’ve done it many times before. Please help me see what is causing it to happen, & then help me to overcome it.”
The Bible teaches that when the Holy Spirit guides our life, that one fruit of the spirit is self control. And if you have anger, you need to control it.
Today I watched a show called Kingdom Connection. On my TV system it is on at 9:00 AM on sunday morning. He had a guest Christine Caine on the show who runs a ministry to try to stop human trafficing. In 2013 there are an estimated 27 million people who are slaves. Many of these slaves are sold as sex slaves.
His guest told a dramatic story about how she rescued Three woman who were sex slaves in Turkey. The woman had been in slavery for over a year. When they were dramatially rescued one of the woman asked Christine “why are you here” Christine answered saying “There is a God in heaven who loves you and He has redeemed my life and He wants to help you”. She then told her about the love of Jesus and how He had changed her life.
The girl was crying, but then she asked Christine “if what you tell me about your God is true, why didn’t you come sooner”. This question had a dramatic impact on Christine. If the story of Jesus is true: how that He loves us, died for us, saves us, has mercy on us. If it is true, why are we not going sooner to help people in need.
This is why in a quitting smoking program we read the Bible every day. This is why in a quitting smoking program we read the purpose driven life and pray aggressively about finding our purpuse. We need to start very soon – helping people in need.
When Christine was asked what can we do. The first thing she said was that we can pray for their ministry. You can pray every day for her ministry, or 3 times a day, or 5 times a day. You can do the same for my ministry.
You can watch the full interview with Christine Caine at www.jentenzenfranklin.org
You can give to her ministry and recieve a 4 DVD set called revival (for a gift of any amount) by calling Jentezen Franklin ministries at 800-951-7646 (call them to see if this offer still applies). I watch Jentezen every sunday and I think he is the real deal. I know that he does not take any part of the proceeds, 100% goes to helping the people.
Read Psalms 2
Key Point: Write every prayer from this course on a 3 by 5 card and carry them with you wherever you go. Read and pray these prayers as often as you can (remember it is not the repetition that counts – you have to pray sincerely and urgently every time). We can only have the wrong output if we have the wrong input. We will predetermine in advance what our next action will be when we are tempted. If you pray enough your actions will begin to change. If you pray enough and your actions change enough you will never fall again.
Why do we read the Bible every day? Because in the Bible we have all the guidance we need to be all God wants us to be in all of life’s decisions.
Feel free to repeat this program as many times as it takes to learn the discipline to not only quit smoking but also the ability to get what you and God want you to achieve in life.
Below is the top ten prayers and the top ten from the checklist for avoiding relapse.
Checklist for avoiding relapse:
- Checklist for avoiding relapse: Have an all consuming goal that will help other people and that will use up a lot of the time you used to spend on your addiction.
- Checklist for avoiding relapse: Even during times when you are succeeding, prayer urgently often each day to overcome addiction – to develop habits that you may very well need during seasons of difficult temptation.
- Checklist for avoiding relapse: Always practice moderation in all things and always try to identify what activities you tend to overindulge in which lead you down a wrong trail.
- Checklist for avoiding relapse: Write down what attitudes and beliefs led you into addiction. For me the love of pleasure was a priority. That attitude brought about a lot of pain and destruction. I am currently focusing on being very aware of how great things are when I worship God vigorously and pursue the correct passions and purpose. If I improve my awareness of how great things are when I am vibrantly living life God’s way, the next time I fall into heavy temptation I will have more bullets in my gun to fight back.
- Checklist for avoiding relapse: Write down places, people and activities that you need to avoid to stay off the slippery path that leads you back into addiction.
- Checklist for avoiding relapse: Form a plan with new places or people or activities that will help you avoid relapse. Have a list of people that you can reach out to for support when times get tough.
- Checklist for avoiding relapse: Go to support groups – either to get help or to do your part to help others.
- Checklist for avoiding relapse: Make disciple and structure and planning a priority. Both to keep your addiction at bay and to aggressively find your purpose in life.
- Checklist for avoiding relapse: Realize that you have become stronger now. Your life may spin out of control for a bit and you start to slip up. You have crossed the line you know you should not cross. We know drinkers just can’t have that one drink, it leads to others. But you were not trying to set loose boundaries, you just honestly screwed up. You are now strong enough to stop and avoid destruction. Tell yourself and God “I am not trying to set loose boundaries, I am going to stop this relapse right now and fulfill my purpose and find joy”. You are stronger now!
- Checklist for avoiding relapse: Develop positive addictions. Exercise every day, pray every day, read the Bible every day, help others every day, fight to find your purpose every day, turn aggressively from smut every day, determine to treat people with love and respect every day, become more disciplined every day, develop more expertise in moderation every day, learn how to love and worship God more every day. Develop positive addictions.
Top 10 prayers for overcoming addiction
- Pray: Father help me to continue to realize that 12 step programs and help from Pastors and sponsors are vitally important to my continued recovery.
- Pray: “Father help me to make it a habit to always plan my next few days. It is vital to plan because boredom is a trigger to relapse. Routine and concrete scheduling can be a lifesaver for an addict. A schedule, coupled with passion for a new hobby or sporting activity, allows people to successfully and happily break the cycle of boredom.
- Pray: Father help you me always to be balanced. Be balanced physically, emotionally and spiritually.
- Pray: Father help me to focus on the fact that Sex/Porn causes destruction. It always has and it always will.
- Pray the Lord’s Prayer 4 times a day (if you can do it each time sincerely) or as often as you can sincerely pray it.
The Lord’s Prayer: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
- Pray: Father help me to increase my toughness to be able to say no to my habit.
- Pray: “Father, help me to quit my smoking addiction, and to learn how to think about other things instead of smoking and to learn what to do instead.”
- Pray: Father, take away my smoking urges and help me to worship and praise you so that I will become more disciplined and stronger.
- Pray: “Father give me the wisdom to write a prayer that will help me to start overcoming my addiction.” For example – you feel like your addiction has hurt your ability to be a great parent. You might pray “Father help me to care more about my kid’s future than I care about lust/pleasue.” Once you have that prayer that really speaks to what will motivate you – start praying it in earnest. You can pray it as many times each day as you want as long as you are sincere in increasing your desire to change with each prayer. God is not counting how many times I pray my prayer. He is looking at how my heart changes as I sincerely pray it each time and how I allow him to lead me to better choices because now (because of prayer and extra effort) I am starting to see reality clearer.
- Pray: Father help me to be moderate in all things (being moderate in all things will help you stay away from your main addiction).
I need your help. My new book “What The Bible Says About Addiction” is available for sale on Amazon. If you want a copy please purchase one and leave a good review. If you are short on cash you can read the first 3 chapters for free at Amazon and still write a review. This book along with this course will help you change twice as fast. Writing a good review is your way of helping the next person. When you are busy helping the next person, you are starting to think the right way. Click here to access it.
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Index
Day 1 Overcoming cravings
Day 2 Why can’t you quit
Day 3 Start a Journal
Day 4 Overcoming negative emotions
Day 5 You can’t increase your pleasure for the month by smoking
Day 6 Control your emotions and plan your day
Day 7 Learning how to worship God is a key to overcoming addiction
Day 8 Develop positive addictions
Day 9 How to get help from the Holy Spirit
Day 10 Have a list of coping statements
Day 11 Living water and how to live in God’s blessing
Day 12 Genesis can teach us about addiction
Day 13 Results of Adam and Eve’s actions
Day 14 How to pray to fight addiction and developing toughness
Day 15 and 16 self control
Day 17 Which prayers get answered
Day 18 The right church can help you
Day 19 Plan your day and keep addiction at bay
This is a reprint of an earlier article
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #1: Set a quit date.
Choose a date within the next week, so you have enough time to prepare without losing your motivation to quit.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #2: For some one of the main reasons you smoke is because that is one of the few things that you feel like you have control over. It is your choice, it is your thing it is who you are. But this is a cruel lie. smoking is a force and it is a driving force. How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #3: There are some addictions that we think we are controlling but those addictions are actually controlling us. Over time smoking causes a loss of control of many things.
So why do people somke after they have decided to quit? In most people there is a dueling of personalities. Your mind tells you that you have to stop smoking but your pleasure seeking flesh tells you that it will feel good.
Key Point #1 As long as you are ruled by the pleasure principle you will always struggle with addiction. The pleasure seeker is selfish, immature, demanding and short sited. How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #4: In the long run, pleasure which is from an addiction always has a price to pay which is much higher than what you want to pay.
John Howard Prin in his book Secret Keeping notes that “Because temptations can come in so many forms (smoking, overeating, or surfing internet porn) these dueling tensions can be triggered continually. The average persons dual-mindedness results from listening to both opposing forces and acting according to one, then the other, then the first one again, then the second again… on and on in an endless tug-of-war.”
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #5: Instead of being ruled by the pleasure principle strive to be ruled by the moral principle. The moral principle is wise and rational and it leads to real long term joy instead of fake short term pleasure which leads to destruction. This principle believes that rules like that of your country or laws from the Bible are there to make your life better. When you follow this principle you willingly give up your solution of choice (smoking) in exchange for another activity. How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #6: The reason you make this choice is because you now believe that choosing an alternative activity will give you the best life over the next 7 days and longer. So if you stay clean today and develop new activities you may have a hard day today but your week and your future will be better.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #7: Always choose the Wisdom of staying clean today so that you can have a good life all week, instead of giving in to the short term pleasure and destruction of smoking for one day. R Over time staying clean is a lifestyle which is always better.
Smoking is an escape for many people. One can escape from tension, anger, lack of success, pain and many other things. How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #8: We need to get rid of the escapist mindset because our one day of escape always ruins more than one day and it often ruins a whole week or longer. Along the same lines many have the philosophy that if it feels good do it. The problem is, that the feeling good of a few hours usually causes the feeling bad of a few days. Instead of having this damaging mindset, embrace finding your purpose, and living the right way which will lead to happiness over time.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #9: John Howard Prin in his book Secret Keeping wrote about his past addicted behavior. He said “Drinking in private both elevated my joys and numbed my distress, a dual benefit. Looking back , these fundamentals of addiction gradually became habits:
1st: Resentment. I was reliving all my past hurts. Another 30 years would pass before I could face these resentments and get rid of their corrosive power.
2nd: Isolation. My drinking intensified when I spent time alone. Solitary time was to become the riskiest situation for me to be in.
3rd: Drama and crisis. Overreacting, partly learned from Mom’s open display of temper and partly do to my brains overly sensitive conditioning, ruled me.
4th: Exaggerated emotions became my way of responding to life.
5th: Delusional thinking. My choice of a high profile film career had alrealdy hatched a larger dream to make movies in Hollywood and-why stop there-To win an Oscar. Excessive boozing inflated these unrealistic expectations.
Unwittingly I fell into the trap of living for the outside in. Accountable to no one, losing my bearings, I cared little about my character development yet easily became a slave to the ambitious pride that had aroused me”.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #10: We can see that being overly sensitive to emotional pain or failure is often a trigger to addiction. So first of all we need to be determined to be tougher and more emotionally ready for life’s constant problems. 2nd, negative emotions can lead us into addiction.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #11: we need to always work on getting rid of anger and other negative emotions which are often hidden triggers. Lastly we need to avoid circumstances which lead to negative emotions (if posible). Good planning and flexible planning can help you avoid circumstances which will trigger you.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #12: John Howard Prin also wrote “In time I learned that if my external motivation was strong enough, then my internal impulses could be curbed.”
For some people a great enough amount of pain or a change of thinking will cause them to change their behavior.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #13: If what you think about has changed, then your internal impulses can be controlled.
This is key point #2. You need to think about the benefits of quitting more often than you think about the experience of smoking. How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #14: Make a note to remind yourself to do this untill it becomes a daily habit.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #15: You need to think more about the destruction smoking cause you than you think about the pleasure/pain relief it gives.
The remainder of this video will contain information which is only spiritual in nature. How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #16: Addiction tells us that something we can do (indulging in smoking) can compensate for what is missing inside of us. It is a lie. Religion will tell you to quit smoking. To control the fire that burns inside of you. But I will tell you that you need to increase the passion in your life. Your life needs to surge with more passion for something then it ever has before. You were created to have a dramatic impact on this world. Most of you have never experienced the rush of knowing what God wants you to do.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally tip #17: Solutions” Dedicate your life to Christianity. Study the Bible and pray, pray, pray. Pray about everything but especially pray that God will take away your anger and any other negative emotions that may be a trigger for you. Obey the Bible down to every last word. Don’t look at sin and don’t even consider commiting any sin. Pray always about finding your purpose and be determined to live in the glory of Jesus Christ. He will fill what is missing in your life but you have to be intense about doing what He wants you to do. God wants you to find your purpose and He wants you to spread the Gospel. If you spend all of your free time in a dedicated way serving God, then you will have more passion and joy than you ever had.
Video’s 1 and 2 have a lot of information on finding your purpose and #2 has a lot of information on Christianity. And virtually all of the video’s have a lot of help on overcoming addiction. Try to watch one each day and keep watching them over and over untill you form new habits.